The road to the Grey Cup leads through Calgary. If there were some disbelievers among the B.C. Lions before, there shouldn’t be any left now.

For the third straight time, the Lions left McMahon Stadium having been torched for at least 40 points in a loss to the Stampeders.

Friday’s 40-26 victory by the Stamps followed an earlier meeting this season, on June 28, the first game of the regular season in which Calgary embarrassed the Lions, building a 31-6 half-time lead, then cruising to a 44-32 win. Before that, the Lions lost 41-21 to the Stampeders on Oct. 26, 2012 at McMahon, a game that was a precursor to the West Division final, where the Lions went down again to the Stampeders, 34-29, though that game had a different twist. It was played at BC Place.

“If you look at the last three visits (to Calgary), the facts are what they are,” said Lions head coach Mike Benevides. “They tell you the reality of what happened. It’s real, it’s factual, and it’s not acceptable. To get where we want to get, you can’t let that occur in any which way or form. You have to get within striking distance if you want to get it done. You can’t do it by giving up those kind of points.”

The latest defeat to the 12-3 Stampeders all but eliminated any chance of the 9-6 Lions taking first place in the West Division. For that to happen, Calgary would have to lose its remaining three games, B.C. would have to run the table the rest of the way and defeat the Stampeders by 25 points in the final game of the regular season, Nov. 1 at BC Place.

Calgary holds a 2-1 edge in the season series against the Lions, having outscored B.C. by a differential of 24 points. If the Lions and Stampeders should finish with identical records in the standings, and in their four-game season series, the differential in points for and against is the tiebreaker.

By Nov. 1, it could all be a moot point anyway. The dates that matter most to Benevides now are Oct. 19 -- the Lions’ next game, in Regina -- and Nov. 10, the date of the West Division semi-final.

Realistically, the head coach knows that first place is gone. A semi-final playoff game at home, however, awaits the second-place finisher in the West. That’s an achievable goal, if the Lions can defeat the Roughriders next Saturday at Mosaic Stadium. A victory would padlock a 2-1 edge in the season series against Saskatchewan.

“My approach is, I want to win the next game,” Benevides said. “If we win the next game, we have the series on Saskatchewan. All I care about is the next win. All I care about is getting our group to play football for 60 minutes. All I care about is making sure we’re the best possible team we can be heading down the stretch. There’s no doubt I want to play in front of our fans. That doesn’t change. We want to play a playoff game at home. That’s the goal. In order to do that, we’ve gotta win this (Oct. 19) game. All that other stuff is irrelevant.”

The blueprint for November requires a defence that can keep games close and not force Travis Lulay, if he’s available by then, or Thomas DeMarco to trade touchdowns with the Stampeders. There also has to be a way found to limit running back Jon Cornish from reaching triple digit rushing yards.

Cornish had 130 yards and a touchdown on Friday night. On June 28, he ran for 172 yards and two touchdowns against B.C. The one time the Lions got the measure of him, to a degree, Cornish had 73 rushing yards in a 26-22 loss at BC Place on Aug. 17.

“Some way, somehow, if we’re able to remove those three explosive runs, we’re still in it,” Benevides said. “But against a good guy and a good group you can’t be slightly off. Those three explosive plays by Jon were hard to handle.”

Cornish had a 38-yard romp in the fourth quarter to set up the Stampeders’ go-ahead touchdown and turned a simple shovel pass into a 25-yard gain that led to a field goal in the second quarter. He had two other runs of 18 yards.

The Lions had just 56 net rushing yards, even worse than their performance of a week earlier when they 80 in a 31-17 loss to Saskatchewan, and tailback Andrew Harris refused comment after the game. Despite the avowed commitment to attacking and dictating to the defence, Harris finished with just 31 yards on nine carries.

“Our best answer was throwing the football. That’s where we had success,” Benevides said.

DeMarco, making his fourth start, was off target in the early going but found his range and started making plays. He connected with Courtney Taylor on a 27-yard touchdown play in the second quarter, ran in a one-yard touchdown in the third and threw a six-yard touchdown to Nick Moore in the fourth to bring the Lions into a 26-26 tie.

But he threw an interception -- a big one that cornerback Chris Randle returned 65 yards for a touchdown -- after defensive tackle Demonte Bolden affected the throw at the line of scrimmage.

“He (DeMarco) gave us a chance,” Benevides said. “Playing a quality team like that, and giving us a chance to tie the game, some of those guys were doing the right stuff.

“They’re (Stampeders) the lead dogs. We’ve been in that position before. We got to track ‘em down. We’re going to see them again, and I plan to see them twice.”

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